LARGE FAMILY ROAD TRIP FOOD PREP | FRUGAL HACKS | FRUGAL FIT MOM 

I fed 9 people 5 days of lunch AND dinner for $150 during our family vacation this year. The hotel we were staying at provided breakfast but no kitchenette. So I prepped 5 large family dinner and froze them in the deep freezer the weekend before. I pulled them out the day of our trip and they went into a large cooler with ice. We thawed each meal in the hotel bath tub a couple hours before dinner and then warmed a few portions at a time in the provided room microwave. We even brought cheep dollar store plates to eat off and wash them in a little dish tub on the bathroom sink. Everyone ate lunch meat and PB&J sandwiches for lunch with lots of cut up fruit and veggies. We saved hundreds of dollars in food not eating out everyday and it was nice to enjoy healthy home cooked meals on vacation.

Christine: 2 hours to bake and cook several days worth of meals for 6 people, shower, get ready and pack for a trip Me: 2 hours to watch a video and think about what to have for lunch

Love this idea! We actually get Blue Apron meal kits delivered to Airbnbs when we travel! It's so easy to change the address on the delivery and then we don't have to bring the food with us. We do usually bring along snacks and breakfast food.

Frozen bottles of water work great in the cooler to keep your food cold!

Great ideas.. freeze some of your water bottles the night before use them as your ice packs.

For travel breakfasts, I put a funnel into a clean & empty water bottle and fill it with cracked eggs. Use a chop stick to pierce the egg yolks. A 16.9oz bottle should fit 11-12 whole eggs.

You are genuinely like the little sister/lady friend I always wanted. I wish I had your videos when I was a *very* struggling single mom. I had to sometimes shop at the dollar store for food just to get something on the table for my daughter and I. Now my daughter is almost 26, and I’m struggling with COPD and was recently diagnosed with parathyroid cancer. I also have major depressive disorder, and I know how bad it gets in the winter months. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing your beautiful family with us. And Speedy, too, of course! 🥰

We went to London recently and I did this for our breakfasts. I took a travel kettle and did instant porridge pots and pain au chocolat and juice cartons and it probably saved us a small fortune!

I am obviously PMSn because when you got to the end, I got emotional 😭😂😄 - You seriously can't put a price on taking care of your family and it involves much more than basic food and shelter. My son is a super picky eater so when we road trip, I always pack food for us, especially when we do the Orlando theme parks. I have a kid who won't eat ice cream or candy, but loves the homemade sugar cookies I make for him, so it's like... how could I not make them to bring along so he can enjoy treats at the park like every other kid. When you plated up the chicken and then I saw the perfectly crafted sandwiches, it just touched my heart. I know you like to save, but you do these things because you love your family and no one can make their bellies happier than Mom. I hope you have an awesome trip - definitely creating special memories that will last a lifetime... The same way you talk about the things your mom did when you were growing up, your kids will do the same. You're awesome and I hope this winter is a mild one for you ❤

This so reminds me of road trips with my family when I was little. My mom always packed a mini coffee pot (this was way before rooms started carrying them) and a mini hot pot and we always had a picnic basket filled with all kinds of canned goods. We'd stop at the local grocery store and it was amazing what she could whip up with just those two appliances. It was soup and sandwiches on the road and maybe a nice dinner or treat somewhere along our travels. As a kid I hated it, but now as a mom I understand and moreover, appreciate the heck out of her ingenuity. Like you, she was the master of squeezing everything out of a few dollars. Safe travels!

I also do this when we take our kids to the zoo or an amusement park. I do 2 or 3 different sandwiches, chips and/or crackers, fruit and drinks and waters. We take a break and go out to the car to relax and eat and then go back. Saves SO MUCH money!!

The last two trips I’ve taken, I’ve had groceries delivered to the Airbnb. It is helpful to keep sandwich stuff, fruit, snacks, etc.

I used to travel in my work, staying two or three weeks at a time. My co-workers did not understand why I always wanted to stay at Residence Inns. They had a nice breakfast buffet, and some of them had happy hours with food four nights a week. The rooms had kitchens, sometimes full kitchens with ovens, sometimes just a stovetop with a microwave. They would even take your grocery list, do the shopping and put it away for you. Usually I received a per diem for meals, of which I could keep the cash I didn't spend. I am too much of a tight wad to spend it all on restaurant meals. There is always a cheaper, better alternative. Good job on your vacation meals! BTW, have you tried the muffin formula from the Tightwad Gazette? I know you get muffin mixes on sale, but the formula is so simple you can make any flavor at any time without a specific recipe or mix. I've been using it for so long, I memorized the formula years ago (at least 25 or 30 years). No telling how much money I saved by not buying muffin mixes.

I get bad seasonal depression too and just hearing your up beat voice really helped me get motivated today. So thank you!

We have the same cooler! Vintage! 1972-it was my mom & dads! Works better than any cooler we’ve had! Great ideas! My husband and always take “ picnic” foods when we travel. You eat better and don’t waist all that money on take out! Thanks for sharing!

LOVED this! A friend used to take a crock-pot and frozen prepped crockpot meals. She'd plug in the crock pot, dump in a slightly thawed meal and return to the hotel/motel with dinner ready!

Another great road trip idea is to connect to your library online. They often have audio and ebooks available to borrow so are great for those who can read in the car/or listen to books in the car.

When we have travel across several states on road trips in our crew cab truck, we used an electric cooler that plugs into our vehicle's cigarette lighter (and into an outlet in our hotel room). The cooler sits in the truck's backseat and the electric cord is long enough to reach the front. We fill the cooler with a day's worth of bottled water, flavored tea and our favorite canned carbonated beverages as well as what we need to make sandwiches and a side dish (cold cuts, cheese slices, small containers of mayo and mustard, a bagged salad mix and a small container of cubed fruit and perhaps a small container of potato salad). A small cardboard box or milk crate contains the foods that do not need refrigeration (loaf of sliced bread, jar of peanut butter, squeeze bottle of honey, packs of flavored instant oatmeal, small bag of powdered milk, package of cookies, bag of chips, small jar of instant coffee, canned chunky soup...). We find a nice spot to park at lunch time, make our sandwiches and serve them with chips or potato salad, a cool beverage and have some fruit or cookies for dessert. Lunch tends to be our largest meal when we are on a road trip. We also bring along an electric tea kettle so we can make instant oatmeal or instant grits and instant cocoa or instant coffee in our hotel room for breakfast. If the hotel room has a microwave, we will usually stop at a supermarket that evening and buy a couple of microwaveable frozen meals or we have brought along a can of chili or chunky soup to put over hot rice (from one of those little pouches of pre-cooked rice, heated in the microwave). These make inexpensive, calorie-controlled dinners. Sometimes we buy a four-pack of frozen breakfast sandwiches to heat up in the microwave for breakfast if we will be staying in the hotel for several days. If we stay at a motel that has a free breakfast, then we will see if there are foods and beverages there we want to consume. The quality of these free breakfasts varies widely, so we never count on getting a decent breakfast for free. The meals we make on the side of the road or in our hotel room cost a lot less than restaurant meals, save time (no waiting to be seated or waiting to order or waiting to get the meal or waiting to get the check or waiting to get our credit card back) and we can choose exactly the kinds of ingredients we prefer. We also like avoiding crowded dining conditions if it is flu season -- eating in our room means less exposure to whatever illness is getting spread around. And yes, we sanitize the door knobs, light switches, faucet handles, TV remote control, etc. with anti-viral wipes as soon as we enter a hotel room because it sucks to become ill while traveling. We do not like having to wash dishes on a road trip, so we bring a supply of paper bowls, small paper plates, disposable plastic flatware, paper napkins and a roll of small size kitchen trash bags. And when we prepare those "on the road" meals, we are very careful to never litter the area where we park for our roadside lunch or to stain the carpet or bedding in our hotel room. If our hotel room has a small table, that is where we boil the water, assemble our meals and eat those meals. We never leave the hotel room's little trash can overflowing with disposable items and wrappers from our meal. The trash is bagged up immediately after the meal and taken down the hall to that larger trash can next to the ice machine or soda machine. Housekeeping never knows if we have prepared dinner and breakfast in our room.

I meal plan before we leave for every vacation so I know what to pack. We have one snack bag, one cooler for travel food and one for fridge and one for freezer. I also make a grocery list of what we need to get when we get there so we can do it in one trip to the store. We have a few take out places for lunch like pizza or sandwiches that we plan for but I cook everything else while we are on vacation. It is so much calmer and we don’t spend hours in line for mediocre food. Makes everyone’s trip better. Totally agree with you. A little prep goes a long way.

You can regrow your romaine, if you put the ends in water, then when they start to get roots plant them, I do it with green onion too, I have several pots of romaine, they will yield some really good leaves, before they die, but the onion goes on & on......I have like 5 pots now...... parsley and basil can be planted in pots if you find the whole plats in stores, my plants are several years old you just have to keep using them, or picking the leaves and drying them for later...... anyways just a thought.

We need a frugal fit mom crew book club !

Even when we fly we pick up a rotisserie chicken , eggs , cheese , produce and some tortilla and it is amazing how many meals we can make with so little effort. I even throw a little baggie of quinoa in my luggage and boil up the chicken bones and make soup with the last of the produce. Works great.

You can also easily bring an air fryer or instant pot if you have room in the car. Even if you don't have a kitchenette, you can make it work

We bring taco meat, tortilla chips, salad mix and tortillas. You can have tacos, quesadillas, nachos, taco salad. I have also done a Boston butt into BBQ meat...same thing, sandwiches, salad, pulled pork, breakfast meat. Happy family with options!

I struggle with my mood in the dark winter-I use a happy light every morning and it works wonders. I still get out everyday unless it’s dangerously icy, but I depend on my light to feel good. I too cook for road trips / family vacays.

OH MY GOSH! We had that same Coleman cooler growing up! We loved it. The raccoons did figure out how to unlock it one year, lol. Great video and meal prep ideas for road trips! Have a great time and soak up those rays.

We went to Wyoming/ Yellowstone for a week. I took a good sized cooler full of food. We had air B and B type situations. We went to grocery store once because I forgot to pack eggs and once when we got to our first destination and on our way home a couple days away from getting home for stuff, we stopped and got a few extra things. Overall so much cheaper!! We had my five including myself plus both my parents to feed. We will do this from now on as long as we are driving.

We start every road trip with egg salad sandwiches for the first day. Our family joke is that dad is always into the sandwiches before we hit the HWY. It’s definitely the way to travel!

I totally agree with this concept. We went to Mozambique by road (I live in South Africa) in 2019 and we took all prepared food for a week except one night because we knew we could afford one night eating out at the resort (Mozambique is REALLY cheap for awesome seafood) and it was the best vacation I have ever had because we just didn't need to cook or overextend our budget.

Thick cut peppered bacon! Love your tips, binge-watch your older videos regularly...and ordered Built bars for my hubby! Thank you Christine! Safe journey!

We have a timeshare so usually have a kitchen and I cook and freeze several meals for us. We also bring eggs and some other breakfast items (coffee, milk, sugar) and cook while on vacation. Saves a ton of money! I also have a book called " The Two Burner Gourmet" by Terry L. Searfoss. There are many ideas for how to bring spices along (make baggies of combinations) for recipes and then you can buy fresh meat and vegetables.

I always planned meals for our trips! I take my George Foreman grill, and sometimes a slow cooker. We always to like tacos, pizza quesadillas (on the grill), I would do burgers on our charcoal grill on home to warm up then do fresh veggies and sides that we bought at whatever town we was at. We do baked potatoes in the baked potatoes for lunch one day and spaghetti for another. We usually go out to eat at big restaurants 2 times, that we know (with gift cards we purchased throughout the year, got from Christmas, or I got from online rebate apps.)

My favorite cut of bacon is the center-cut bacon. I also cook it in the oven. Although, I do put foil down on the baking sheet and I flip the bacon when it's half way done. It always comes out very crispy.

Awesome meal prep! I love how you balance healthy foods and treats. I hope you have a fantastic road trip.

You rock Christine! Great meals for your trip, have a blast with your family.

Thank you for all of your tips! They are so helpful.

Thanks for food prep tips for traveling! You make it good and easy!

We do a LOT of conventions/travel work events and stay at hotels (At least once a month). I bring my crockpot and liners. The first night before we go to bed, ingredients for a breakfast casserole/bowl is put in the crockpot. Ready when we wake. Remove liner and the next liner goes in with ingredients for dinner. SO much cheaper and SO MUCH TASTIER than eating out!

Have fun! I love to meal prep for road trips. I have a specific diet due to allergies and it is always good to know exactly what's in your food!

Hey Christine. I have been loving your videos. You have give me a lot of different meal ideas. I like the budget dinners. Hope to keep watching your videos. Keep up the great ideas.

Every year we get the family seaside cottage for a week to ourselves....I cook the majority of our suppers ahead and reheat as the week goes by, plus I make a huge bean salad and pot of soup for lunches to go with sandwiches. Breakfast is a full English every morning.

Little concerned about the lunch meat hoagies not going in the cooler 😉 Love the ideas to save time and money on the road trips! We do the same. So worth the prep

My mom was frugal and we had a kitchenette every vacation growing up. She cooked every meal except breakfast. We got fast food breakfast and we thought it was a treat!!!! Saved tons of money!

watching your videos getting ideas for our road trip to nc next week- Thanksgiving with my oldest daughter who lives up there gonna hit the trails-(bike , hike) have some fun and eat a-lot of good food!

Christine I'm gonna blow your mind: hand mixer. You can get a good one for $20. Use it for mixing..... mixes.

"What's your favorite bacon?" You had me at B-AAA-C-O-N! Christine's reading goals for a long weekend road trip 3 books plus movies, my goal read a chapter and not from a cookbook ;-) My new life goals "I wanna grow up to be just like Christine" I'm in my 50s but I'll get there LOL.... Have an awesome time with the fam!!!

This is great advice for people looking to save money on vacation. I personally vacation to go out to eat and enjoy food I don't typically get at home. I also don't want to cook or do jack on vacation. To each their own.

You guys should take a vacation down here to Mississippi. You could start in Nashville, TN and ride the Natchez Trace all the way down to South Mississippi. It's a fabulous place. There are some bike trails, but the road itself, lovingly and simply called The Trace, is completely engulfed in the woods. It's all native American grounds. It's absolutely gorgeous. The only sign of civilization is when you cross over a few highways in the bigger cities, like Tupelo. But let's be honest, most of the South is the woods, anyway. There are plenty of rest stops every few miles or so with picnic tables and restrooms. They're currently working out there to improve the roadway and bridges and such. I can't stress enough how lovely it is. It's warmer here for sure, but it's probably a more ideal place to visit in spring or fall because the wind will blister you worse than the sun in the winter here, and the sun is killer in the summer. Just a fun suggestion! People are always riding it on bikes, from one end to the other. It's super nice ❤️

We do a lot of travel for basketball and do the same thing. I cook ahead freeze, then take with us to reheat. I bought an electric skillet to warm up our food. The cost saving is great but some many times everyone is tired and the last thing we want to do is spend our time sitting in a restaurant. We also stay in hotels that have breakfast so everyone can eat when they want.

Have you ever tried cooking on your motor. I used to do this on long trips. When the item was about done we could smell it and brought on the appetite. So good. Stop and eat a hot meal. Real easy to do.

We always bring food with us too Italians don't go anywhere without food! Sometimes we also bring the electric skillet for cooking in the hotel. It makes breakfast fast, cheap, easy, and delicious. And you can make anything in it. I buy the same bacon as you do, the Hempler's center cut uncured

Packing for a long road trip right now! I made a whole bunch of apple chips in the dehydrator!!! Yay healthy snacks for the kiddos and me!

Omg I love your channel. You totally rock. I your life feels so relatable to mine. I'm a mom of 4, been married for nearly 17 years and almost 40. I've got a year and half before that happens. Then when you played Good Charlotte I'm like yes she my type of person. So similar and yes where has all the years gone.

My family has food allergies, so we always travel with our own food. Of we happen to fly, a stop at Walmart (or somewhere) is needed. We always stay at hotels with a minimum of a fridge and microwave, but usually try for a full kitchen.

Went on a 5 day trip to the outer banks in NC with another couple to a condo on the ocean and we each took a supper and all breakfast food and lunch food and shared and leftovers for another night. Only went out once to eat. It is the way to save money.

I love that dog video!!!🤣🤣 makes me laugh every time! Good meal prep. I prepare food for road trips too; it does save the restaurant bill!

Good deal. When my kids were pre teen we took bread and fixings for sandwiches and drinks then stopped and bought deli meat. You had to have ice in coolers no handy no leak freezer packs. If we ate out it was lunch much cheaper.

I love picknicking when we travel. We really enjoy going to a forein supermarket, especially the French, and buy bakery items plus some cheese, sausage and snacking veggies and fruit. Often we go overboard and need to do a leftover picknick the next day. And it is still a lot cheaper than eating at a restaurant plus you get to try a wider variety of local foods.

Always love your videos. I am a big fan of yours 😆 thank you for all your incredible help 🙏

We grew up with an on-site caravan as our holiday home.. my mum fed us exactly like this.. we would go back to our caravan at night heat dinner and eat all before our friends had managed to get their dinner cooked... I follow this as an adult when I go camping.. everything prepped and pre frozen if I can.. heat and eat.. done..

Love your videos..-thanks so much!! :). Great books

So... I eat kosher and live in Argentina, where kosher food is not available nationwide. So I always take food with me. When I talk to non kosher eaters I am always amazed at how much they spend on food on vacations. I only pay for stays and activities, other people go out every single day for like ten days🥵

My family usually just grab a rotisserie chicken and a loaf of bread for dinner from a local grocery store whenever we travel, that and maybe some baked goods for breakfast , lunches were bread and deli cheese/meat, jerky, and a case of water and we are set. Trail mix and protein bars and $1 coffees were for the in-between time when we all were a bit peckish. I might break out the cooler on the next family trip because sometimes you just want to eat cooked veggies that were roasted and not steamed lol

I pack lunch and snacks for the zoo. I purchased yearly pass w the ability to take a couple guests. We may still get a treat, but definitely a lot cheaper and more variety to what they have. I know the sales puts money towards the animals. I can still donate to them and save money. (I was just at Wal-mart getting the Ibotta Thanksgiving deals. My grandma and I each have an account. Only one of us got the turkey. But, we were able to get all sides except the cranberry sauce. It expired. The sides equal $10.73 w turkey $25.73.😊)

We did that this summer when the cabin we stayed in had a kitchenette. So much easier once you reach your destination.

My son he’s in the eighth grade but he lives about three hours away from me and I see him every other week and I’d really like to try to see him every week and I know that if I make that effort I’m definitely going to have to be more aware of my food spending so I’m definitely going to take tips on this video because even saving $10 that’s $40 over a month and that’s a whole tank of gas for me to go see him or at least a half a tank

Love the classics you chose at the thrift store. Happy reading!!

My daughter got me hook a few years back. We do airbnb all the time and bring out on food and cook or grill outside so much cheaper. Can spend money on fun things to do.

This was great. We are a family of 7 and we are going to be doing a long road trip. This video has my brain wheels turning. Thank you.

How did you know exactly what I needed. We leave next Friday, and then again for Spring Break, as a family of 6 driving 16 hours!

We have the same vintage green cooler lol. It was my parents and I remember using it when we were growing up. It is great. Memories.

Great idea! Totally doing this next time.

My sister was shocked the other day when I left goodwill without any books! If you read nora Roberts have you ever read any of her "in death" series under her other name jd Robb?? They are great and theres at least 50 in the series with new releases still being written. Its a crime novel series featuring a bad ass female police lieutenant that was originally supposed to be super futuristic when the series began in the 90s but as the years pass in real life lots of the things become a reality as far as technology. Definitely recommend! And i just found several hard covers of newer releases at good will for $1 each that still had the $25 grocery store sticker on them

Our family is planning a road trip from MN to NY in July. Great Ideas!!! Thanks 💕

I make meals in my crock pot in the hotel. One night we'll have loaded potato soup. Another chili and the next day chili dogs or chili mac for lunch. Also spaghetti is easy to store and reheat in a hotel. If we are gonna spend the day at an amusement park I'll BBQ hot dogs and hamburger and place them in a black plastic container with a clear lid. I leave the container in sitting on the dashboard soaking up the hot sun. When we return to the car for lunch the food is hot and ready to eat. Taste like it just came off the grill.

You are so inspiring!! Your personality, food prep, cooking, and sharing with all of us is a blessing!!😇😇🙂🙂

Another great video. I do this kind of stuff too whenever we go on trips. I am a family of 5 and yeah, it's way too exspensive to go out for every meal. I'd much rather spend my money on doing things that make memories.

Bacon wise, my favorite is black forest cured bacon. Who foods has it and it's just amazing. Every Christmas I make bacon wrapped scallops with it and it's just amazing

Love your channel and your enthusiasm. Every time your videos pop up I know I'm going to have a good time. Also when you were shoveling songs on your Alexa I was right next to mine and she went off and started shuffling songs by Good Charlotte. Keep doing you.

I just got back from a weeklong road trip from Utah to Minnesota. It ended up being a last minute car trip (cancelled flights) so I had no time to prepare food or anything. I literally grabbed mine and my son's clothes and tossed them in a suitcase and left. Picked up Grandma in CO. Each meal was $20-40. And that was just fast food meals, not even sit down ones. It was so expensive. Next time, I'm just going to skip the flight altogether and make food for the car. Road trips are more fun anyway.

Cavemen lawyer lmao 😂 SNL from my time love it!

if I've learnt one thing from this video, it's that FFM has good taste in music However, if you're flying, pack some cereal bars or breakfast muffins in your checked luggage , especially if you like a quick morning. I've always taken breakfast regardless of the trip partially bc im super picky and partially bc I can't have most of what's on a hotel breakfast so my usual breakfast bar is great and it's a good snack if I can have the hotel breakfast. Also, lunch and dinner is way easier to find at stores, fast food joints etc, than finding a good breakfast place at actual breakfast time.

Oh my goodness~ that Coleman reminds me of my childhood. I also do this as much as possible for our daytime meals when we are away. Banana bread for breakfast and assorted picnic stuff. Often kimbab rolls for lunch for three of us and rice balls for the baby. Right now is tangerine season in Korea so I have been loading up with those while I can still get them cheap at the green grocer. Thanks for a great video, Christine! ♡ from Korea

I always melt my butter in microwave first.. then it's easier to stir. Good ideas thanks 😊

I’ve honestly watched this at least 5x 😂. I never thought I could do this but you make it so easy and now I think I could def do this!! Love it thank you for sharing

Great job Mama 👍💕....was wondering what your go to movies are for family movie night 🤓

Good Charlotte! So many memories, haha. I love this travel concept. Our road trips usually consist of gas station food, trail mix and beef jerky. This summer's trip to Yellowstone definitely got me there has to be better options. Thanks for the vid.

Lol, i needed this video YESTERDAY! 🙃 I left out this morning for an 8 Hr drive and more than a few days long trip. But still love this and u.

Christine if you freeze if you water bottles and use them in your cooler It will keep everything else cold you don’t have to use those ice packets and then you have cold water

We have the same vintage Coleman cooler! My neighbor tossed it out and I said grab that for our camping drinks and do you know, not a thing wrong and man it keeps stuff COLD!

Have a great trip!

Enjoy your trip, look forward to pics! TFS

A pro mental health vacation(as opposed to just a break from work) is such a great and reasonable idea.

I love Nora Roberts, Three Fates is a fun read.

Great split screen editing! Nice job! ;D

You are amazing i certainly get loads of ideas from you thanksxx

Believe it or not the food lion brand THICK cut is AMAZING! Okay especially on the blackstone 🤤

maple bacon is for sure my fav. tried it for the first time earlier this year and I dont know how I lived without it.

Gone are the days of my youth when we only had bologna & cheese sandwiches & pop tarts to eat on long road trips...lol 😂 I like your ideas Christine so much better. Hope you & your family have a great weekend 😊🌹

The Pillsbury Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies are THE best gf cookie mix around. My husband, who is not gluten free, says they taste the most similar to “regular” cookies. 🙌🏻